In our search for the origins of Alchemy this is what I've found so far...

One of the earliest texts that I could find is Hermes Trimegestus on "The Emerald Tablet" supposedly the earliest surviving one is 800AD. I can't determine whether this date is valid or not.

Now we kind of drift off into the oh so hazy area linguistics. "Alchemistry" probably derived from "Al Chemia" or some such word. There are numerous etymologies for the word as we've seen and not one of them is in the least bit secure IMNSHO. I have the feeling that "Alchemistry" is short hand for something else, the alchemists wrapped their secrets in a web of allusions and codes. But it's universally that Alchemistry is ultimately of Arabic origin. So let us look at the Arabs and what do we discover? That the Arabs were practicing Alchemistry long before the Renaisance. But be that as it may there is still no link to Egypt. Or is there? Do I need to say that the ARabs conquered Egypt in 642 AD and after that they began the practice of Alchemistry? How did these nomads and desert merchants suddenly develop a superhuman interest and talent in and for Chemistry? Well there was this library in Alexandria Egypt.....Do I need to point out that many of the Alchemical symbols are Egyptian heiroglyphs that contain their original meaning? Do other symbols seem strikingly similar to Greek letters? Again need I say that the Greeks were also in Egypt too studying and researching? Could it be that the Arabs took over the combined wisdom of the Greeks and the egyptians... No, no that's too much of a coincidence....


Principia wrote: "If anything, we could alchemists the 'Great Pretenders'. smiling smiley" No Actually the Alchemists were just the latest in a series of chemists that reached back to at least Ptolemaic Egypt and probably earlier than that.